


A Corporate Takeover

by sherrold



Category: Popslash
Genre: AU, M/M, Pining, firsttime, high tech
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-17
Updated: 2009-11-17
Packaged: 2017-10-03 05:43:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sherrold/pseuds/sherrold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How can you help loving him when he's fabulous and brilliant? Why ever would someone so fabulous and brilliant stay *here*...</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Corporate Takeover

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Elowena as part of _don we now our gay apparel 2004_

"That's a great idea -- and there's no way on earth we can afford it." Chris rested his head on his hands, and let their voices flow over him. "We could add Angelina Jolie, personally, to each box, and people still wouldn't pay more than $50.00 for an upgrade of an established program."

Justin ignored the laughs and shot back, "Lance, man, you're completely wrong on that."

_Justin, Justin,_ Chris thought. A brilliant dev, funny and impassioned and great to work with...and completely lacking the sense to avoid fights with Lance, who made winning arguments a lifestyle.

"You're basing it on Microsoft Office and that's ridiculous -- they haven't added a truly cool new feature to Office in eight or nine years, man. You're not at Microsoft anymore -- let it go!" Justin ran a hand through his stylishly matted hair, releasing a couple of curls up into the air.

Lance said, "Is that some ever-so-careful way of saying I'm too 'risk averse"?

"Yes, but only because Chris gets mad when I cluck at people in meetings."

Justin played to his audience, and Chris couldn't help laughing. Still, he'd better butt in before it got too personal.

"Stay focused, kids, or everybody's moving to decaf." Oops, he probably shouldn't have said "kids." Lance and Justin were a little too aware of the fact they were the two youngest people on the team, and they both looked a bit pissed off. Time to redirect. "Hey, JC -- we haven't heard from product management yet; what do your guys think?" He stifled a laugh at his own meanness, but it was the perfect distraction. JC had clearly completely drifted off, and now was desperately trying to figure out where they were on the agenda. And JC never seemed to mind the guys laughing at his expense.

Chris popped open another can of coke and looked around the room as JC added his bit to the discussion. This meeting -- to decide on the basic v3 design of Translatix's flagship product -- was hugely important. The sort of decision where a couple of years from now, they could be saying "That's where it all started to go wrong," or "That's where the company really started to take off." And he had a great team here to help him with it, an amazing team. Some days he wandered around the halls and could hardly believe that this company wasn't just a dream, and that these great guys really had trusted him enough to throw in with him. But all afternoon -- hell all week, setting this up -- he'd been having trouble focusing.

While he was wool-gathering, they'd somehow managed to jump from test issues to delivery constraints, and Joe was giving them what for. Good old Joey. He and Chris had helled around at trade shows and worked insane hours together, and Joe'd been the first person he'd sharked from Microsoft on his way out the door. They weren't so close these days, now that Joe had a kid and was in the process of acquiring a wife. He'd started to pal around with Justin more these days now that Joe hung out more with the married guys, and worked something closer to normal hours--but he didn't think Joey was going anywhere.

He wished he could say that about the rest of the guys. Lance, for example. It was amazing he'd kept him this long. Sure he was just twenty-three years old, but Lance was definitely destined for bigger things than to be CFO of his little company. Lance could make numbers dance. Lance, dance, he said in his head, trying not to snicker. He'd found that unexplained laughter in the middle of meetings tended to derail useful conversation.

So, where the hell were they? He glanced at the largely ignored agenda to jog his memory. "Who's next -- dev?" Justin leapt up from his chair and stalked over to the white board, looking like he'd just been released from a cage. Chris watched intently as Justin drew pros and cons for the shorter release cycle vs. the more ambitious version of v3. It was a great summary of the meeting so far, and there was a moment of depressed silence before Justin summed it all up. "This here?" he pointed to the board, "is fucked-up shit."

Chris balled his agenda up and nailed Justin in the chest. "Nicely put, Timberlake! Now I remember why I never invite you to sales meetings."

Justin flipped him off with a smile, and added a third column to the table. "Both choices suck." Chris smiled as Justin nibbled on his lower lip, concentrating on his writing. He looked like a college kid in his too-big jeans and three layers of too-tight shirts, and yet he held everyone's attention effortlessly. "The incremental release would be a pussy thing to do -- no one's going to be happy blowing six months of our lives on it. But adding voice recognition and all the pieces that go with it -- it's such an ambitious set of features. And according to Lance and Joey, we're cutting our throat if we don't release by Comdex in May, so that locks us into a release date. I think we need to think about something smaller, but still flashy; something that will get us noticed, without everyone having to work 24/7 until Comdex." Hmm. As dev lead, project planning at this high a level wasn't really Justin's area. This ought to be interesting.

"Right now, Translatix has a standalone mode, or you can use it within Microsoft Office. What if -- instead of all of the complexity and compatibility issues of adding voice recognition for this release, we release two new versions of the current release: one for Star Office, and one for Open Office?"

As usual, everyone started talking at once, with more than one face looking a little suckerpunched. Chris was just as happy, since it meant no one noticed his reaction. It was a great idea, except for the fact that Microsoft would want them dead. He took a couple of deep breaths, then flipped open his laptop and IM'd his assistant. It was obvious they'd be there a few more hours; might as well give in and order pizza now. Better yet, have AJ grab them some taxis and move the meeting home -- it might calm everyone down a little. Best of all, beer. Lots and lots of beer.

**************************

As he said the last good nights, and signed the last taxi chits, he checked his watch. 11:47pm. Oops. He had some spouses and girlfriend/boyfriends pissed off at him, now. On the up side, he thought to himself, maybe they've got a consensus for the next release. He'd have to reread his notes once he sobered up to be sure, but it was looking good. He slapped the side of the last taxi leaving, and stood in the road a minute, staring at his house. It was way too big for him, and nearly empty inside, but it looked great from out here, all lit up against the clear night sky. He never thought he'd have a house like this; a life like this. The path glowed faintly in the solar-powered lighting, and he stumbled his way back to the porch, dismayed to see the door had closed. After a moment or two of stretching and feeling along the dusty top of the sill for his holdout key, the door opened. Justin. In the bustle of getting everyone back into taxis he hadn't realized that Justin had stayed. He looked up at the ceiling for a moment, thinking if God exists, he's the kind of guy who thinks it's funny to put beers in front of alcoholics. He pushed past Justin into the living room, trying to keep it light. "Hey, I thought you were getting a ride with Lance?"

"Are you kidding? Have you ever taken a taxi with a drunken Lance? First, he sings -- which isn't bad, really -- but then he starts to mutter every evil overlord line you've ever heard in a movie, starting with Darth Vader, and ending with Basil Fawlty. It's horrifying."

He laughed, couldn't help it, but his laughter wound down to an uncomfortable silence. "Justin…"

Justin ignored him, and started to clear greasy plates into the garbage.

"Leave that -- I'll make Bonnie do it in the morning."

Justin continued cleaning, and after a exasperated breath or two, Chris followed behind. They overloaded the recycling bin with beer bottles, and put the other bottles in the empty cartons.

It was weirdly relaxing, working quietly next to each other. When the last of the carnage had been removed, it seemed natural to flop down on the couch next to each other. Comfortable. Cozy. Nice. Until Justin said, "I know you like me."

He felt suddenly short of breath, but managed to squeeze out a flip, "What is this, grade school?"

"Sure. You wanna go up to my treehouse and make out?" Justin turned toward him on the couch, his feet pulled up underneath him. He looked gorgeous, and so so young. "You do want me, right?" Chris's throat tightened up inside -- it was so hard to hear it out loud like that.

Keep it light, Kirkpatrick. "Wait -- there are people who don't want you?" What could he say? He swallowed hard, certain in a rare flash of insight that he was doing something irrevocably stupid, something he'd hate himself for in the morning -- if he even waited that long. He reached a hand out, curving it easily around Justin's neck, pulling him close in. He stared into Justin's light blue eyes for a second, not even knowing what he was looking for, before he ducked down and nuzzled Justin's neck, rubbing the scuff of his goatee around the knife edge of Justin's cheek and jaw, ducking further and sucking on his adam's apple, knowing when he heard a sharp inhale of breath that he was committed.

He pulled back just far enough to peel off Justin's top shirt, which brought to mind an unfortunately image of an onion. He tried not to laugh. Justin didn't even ask, just snickered with him as he raised his arms up. That should have calmed him down, but he knew better. Nothing was going to do that. Even as Justin twisted around and wrapped his arms around him, he was so nervous he could barely breathe. No more slow uncovering -- he pushed up Justin's other shirts, sliding down onto his knees, and leaned in to kiss and lick Justin's beautiful stomach.

He stopped to breathe again. He had to keep this light.

"You know, if we'd seen this at your interview, we never would have hired you."

"My stomach? What the--"

"No developer in the history of programming has ever had a belly this flat." He licked up one side, and starting sucking, not stopping until he could feel the skin purpling under his tongue, then pushed his head up into the shirts still tangled around Justin's arms, nudging at them roughly until Justin pulled them both off. Chris climbed back up on the couch, straddling Justin's legs, continuing to alternately rub and lick at the newly bared skin. "Or arms like these." He pushed Justin's arm onto the back of the couch, licking the underside, then biting at his hair. "A true dev looks like me, understand? Pasty white, doughy soft, resembling bread in its uncooked state. You, however…"

Justin's soft chuckles and softer moans followed Chris' interspersed licking and biting down his chest. Chris stopped at his waist, however, and looked up at Justin, waiting, laughing lightly as Justin looked confused, then laughing louder when Justin got it, and urgently pulled open his button flies. Chris had always loved properly timed torture and IQ tests.

Chis slipped off the couch again and landed softly on his knees in front of Justin's lap, smiling lazily. This part he was okay with. With his mouth full -- fuller than he'd expected, frankly -- he can't say anything he'll regret later, and Justin seemed to understand the unfairness of the one-sided conversation, keeping his end strictly confined to the grunt and moan category.

It had been an up-hill battle this far to keep this light, casual. But now, he couldn't stop it from turning to a sort of worship. Each lick became a caress, each touch an effort to convey feelings he knew better than to say outloud. He skimmed down Justin's hips, pushing the jeans and briefs down, determined to see everything possible, not even letting himself think whether there might be a chance to do this again. When he pulled back to blow lightly before licking again, he darted a glance at Justin's face. It was shadowed by the couch, but he can see that his eyes are closed. Probably just as well, Chris thought, who knows what was written on his face then.

Holding Justin's lean hips firmly in his hands, he started a whole body rhythm, moving him bodily back and forth in and out of his mouth. Paradoxically, it made him feel more in command, even as it made it harder to control the depth of each plunge. Justin was flexing with each stroke, breathing loudly with a moan on each upward move, and Chris had just given in and started rubbing his hips against the couch when Justin reached out and touched him, touched his face. It was as gentle as a calloused hand could be, almost a suggestion of a touch, but Chris shuddered, and slowed their frantic motion. Justin murmured, "love you," and Chris felt a shock of unexpected tears spring to his eyes.

If he'd thought about this, if he'd even taken one second to realize that this might happen sooner or later, he never would have given in. Maybe that's why he never let himself believe it might. Suddenly irritated at them both, he plunged down on Justin's cock, working it hard in his mouth, determined to end this with what little control he had left. He quickly unbuttoned his own jeans, then pushed down on Justin's hips when he started to move, glad to have something else to press against, to oppose. Feeling himself shudder, he reached a hand down, knowing they were each close. He kept sucking, even as Justin started to come, making Justin beg, "no more, enough," which pushed him over, too.

His anger receded along with their urgency and all he felt was forgiveness. He pressed soft kisses to Justin's softening cock, to the taut skin of his hip and thigh, listening as Justin's breath evened and slowed. A few minutes later, he felt Justin's hand grow limp, and crawled up carefully from the floor. Kids, he muttered, no stamina. He stood there staring until the urge for just one kiss threatened to overcome him, before he headed back to his bedroom.

Quietly, he got cleaned up and dressed. A minute later and Justin was -- thank god -- sound asleep and in possession of a polite note asking him to lock up when he left. Chris scribbled the corporate taxi account number at the bottom, and considered leaving aspirin and a water glass as well. But he didn't want to imply Justin would have a hangover -- unfortunately, neither of them had been drunk -- and he suspected he was just coming up with new tasks to give Justin a chance to wake up while he was still there.

He quietly shut the door behind him, and only looked back twice on his way out to his car. It'd been a long motherfucker of a day, and sleeping on the couch in his office was sure to make tomorrow loads of fun, too.

***********************

Two days later, Chris pulled his Ferrari into his reserved space in the dark parking lot, rolling his eyes at the 3 or 4 other cars barely visible in the pre-dawn gray. Bad enough he had to be here before 5 am to teleconference with the East Coast; worse that he had devs crazy enough to still be at work -- even if the odds were at least even that they were only there to play Halo on the six-foot screens in the conference room.

He juggled two lattes, wallet, badge, cell, laptop, and jean jacket, and had a geek moment of glee when his wireless connected and new email filled his cellphone screen while he was still halfway across the parking lot. He waved his badge absently through three different security readers, grabbed a slice of cold pizza as he passed a box, and dribbled a stray soccer ball the length of a hallway, before kicking it into a stairwell.

Just around the last corner from his office, he saw a lit office. Justin's of course. He was seriously considering going back around the other way when he heard muttered voices. One of them was definitely Justin, but who else would be around at this hour? He was still tempted to go the long way around and avoid him like he had yesterday, but sheesh -- you start chickening out on things this early in the morning, and the whole day was shot.

He walked closer, slowing down a little.

"-- talked to Chris yet?"

"I know, dammit Lance, I know."

"Asked me what?" Usually he loved nothing more than seeing people jump guiltily -- bonus points when it's 4:45 am. But this time it wasn't as fun. He pasted on a pale approximation of his usual evil smile, handed Lance his latte, and said to Justin, "I'd have brought you one too, if I'd known you'd still be here, idiot." He looked at his watch ostentatiously. "What _are_ you doing here this late? We don't have a build break, do we?"

"No, nothing like that -- just had a wild hair and wanted to knock it around a little." Too bad Justin still looked guilty -- his tone of voice almost sold it. As it was, watching Lance gather a couple of piles of important looking financial documents from Justin's desk didn't surprise him as much as it should have.

After an awkward pause, Chris crammed the rest of the pizza slice into his mouth and tossed the crust at Timberlake's trash can, crowing as it bounced off the wall on the way in.

"Chris, you slob -- go mess up your own office."

"Yes sir, massah, sir." Chris tugged an imaginary forelock, and ignored Lance and Justin's frowns at his imitation of their accents.

"Lance -- it's gonna take a few to get the conference call going. Take your time, okay?"

"I'll be down in a second," Lance assured him as he headed back down the hallway. Hating himself, Chris walked slowly and quietly to his office, but their voices never got loud enough to hear words.

\---

The conference call was a zoo; ten people in three different states, each arguing for their own point of view. By the time it was finally over at noon, Chris was starving, his head was pounding, and he was thrilled to realize he had only thought about Justin ten or eleven times. Of course, when he headed for the office kitchen to get more coffee and some aspirin, he made a point to go by Justin's office, but that was just to make sure that he'd gone home and gotten some sleep. And though he'd been an awful bitch to Lance all morning, that was just…that was…

Dammit. He'd known Lance wouldn't stay. He wouldn't think of keeping him back. In fact, he'd already started making sure he got the visibility he needed to really move up. But why the hell did Lance have to help Justin leave, too?

He ripped open two packets of aspirin and swallowed both sets dry, grimacing at the bitterness. Subtle, thy name is Kirkpatrick. Of course Lance walked in as Chris stepped over to the coffee machine. "I'm going to the cafeteria. You want anything?"

Chris wanted to say 'no', but he was so hungry his stomach was cramping. "Burger. Fries. Thanks." He left without cream and sugar, stomping as much as one can carrying a hot cup of coffee.

He was so busy that the afternoon should have flown by, but he kept looking out the window, checking to see if Justin's motorcycle was parked outside yet. Not that it should matter. He'd been proven right, after all. He'd fallen for a great guy, but hey, circumstances were against them, right? No bad guys, just the wrong time, wrong place. And, even more, he'd known that going in, and kept himself from falling too hard. Wow, what a smart guy he was.

The sound of another two-cylinder engine came faintly through the windows and he turned again to look.

\---

After all of that, when Justin did show up at his door at 6 o'clock, it startled the crap out of him. "Where did you come from?" he yelled stupidly.

Justin stared, confused, then obviously shook it off and started over. "Chris. You've been here all day. You must be starved."

Of course, Chris groused to himself, Justin had to be right. What was it with these kids, that they all knew his weaknesses. "Yeah. A little," he said, grudgingly.

"Chris, let me take you out to dinner." Justin leaned in the doorway, looking casual and relaxed. Fucker.

"Why. Do you owe me something?"

"Chris, dammit. I want to talk to you. And I know you're tired, and you're hungry, so I want to feed you first. Why--" deep breath "--why are you trying to make this hard?"

All it took was hearing Justin's voice break to make Chris feel three inches tall. He chastised himself: he's a kid, I never should have been messing him around that way.

He reached forward and flicked off each of his monitors, grabbed his cell out of its dock and his coat off his chair. "Okay, where are we going?"

"I don't know, but let's take your car; my bike's in the shop."

They headed down the hallway, out to dinner, like they had twenty times before. People waved or called insults out of offices as they walked by, Justin, as ever, grabbed one last Mountain Dew "for the road" as they walked past the kitchen, but everything felt so different now.

He'd barely gotten the engine started before they'd fallen into their usual fight over restaurants, but he didn't have any patience for it tonight. "You win -- wontons are fine."

He ignored Justin's look of surprise, and headed east towards Henry Chin's, Justin's favorite Chinese place. "Why don't you call in the order, and we'll get it to go." He wasn't dying to be alone with Justin, but having the inevitable conversation while they were on display in public seemed far worse.

Ordering, getting the food, getting back to his house, dishing out the food, dividing the soy sauce and pepper sauce packets evenly. Each step so ordinary. All of their conversation so careful. All he could think was, at least the food was good. I should have let him win more often.

When they were down to two potstickers and a few bean sprouts, he knew they couldn't put it off any longer. He shared out the last of the tea, and put his chopsticks down. "Okay, say what you want to say. I suck, I already know it. But you won't be happy until you say it too."

"You do suck, man. What -- What was that about? Running out, leaving me to wake up alone. You left your own house, Chris." Justin shoved his chair back and started pacing. "You let me drive you out of your house? That's just crazy."

Chris tried to look where Justin wasn't, something his pacing made difficult. "I didn't want it to be awkward."

"Oh yeah, cuz this ain't awkward."

"I'm sorry. I was wrong and you're right." Weirdly easy to say those words. He guessed he'd known even as he was doing it that it was wrong. But it had hurt too much to stay.

Chris took a sip of his tea, and tried to lighten things up. "Even your Chinese place turns out to be better than mine."

Justin didn't laugh, just asked, "What are you so afraid of?"

Chris looked away.

"Chris, you're awesome. You're tough enough to have created this company, loyal enough that half the people on your old team followed you over here, creative enough that there's no end of possibilities here. Why are you so hard to get to know? Why are you pushing me away?" Justin stopped pacing and stood in front of him. "Look at me, dammit."

Chris gave in, and stared up at his beautiful eyes. Justin looked pissed and frustrated, and sad. Chris didn't think anything he could say would fix anything, but that was the hellish part of being in love. It makes you try, even when you know better. He let Justin grab his hand, and pull him over to the couch, and settled in next to him. "You're going to make a great CEO, you know."

"What? Sequitor much?"

"You are. You're fast and smart; definitely smarter than I am. You're young, but high tech is pretty forgiving about that. You've spent your time learning the business; you're smart enough to hook up with a great head for business like Lance -- you're going to be great."

"Wait a minute. Is that it? You think me and Lance--?"

"--are starting a new business together, right?"

Justin pushed off the couch so hard, it slid into the wall behind it. He walked up to the fireplace, flexing his hands open and shut as he walked.

"What. The. Fuck. That's what this has all been about? You think I'm leaving?" Justin took in a big loud breath and blew it out slowly. "Damn straight I'm smarter than you are. But that's because you're an idiot!"

"You'd have found this out Monday morning, but me and Lance have been working on an idea to make Translatix work in browsers, as well as Office. We just didn't want to let you know until we'd done some costing, and seen whether it was practical."

Chris hid his head between his hands. He didn't know even know where to begin. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

"Are you? Tell me you love me; I know you heard me tell you." Justin stumbled a little over the words, but Chris had to admire his bravery.

"I love you."

"I don't get it. You said that so easily. If that isn't--" Justin sat down next to him, and pulling Chris's hands away, gently forced Chris to look at him. "Ask me... ask me to stay."

Chris took a deep breath and opened his mouth, and nothing came out.

"That's it, isn't it. You can't, won't let yourself believe that I'll stay." Justin pressed Chris's mouth shut with a finger, and smiled at him. "Okay, we're going to be fine. We're just going to plan this out like a new project, walk through the steps we'll need to take before you believe me, and then execute on those steps. It's what you've been telling me since I was a college intern, and it's always worked."

Maybe it was just because Justin really was parroting his own words back to him, but they really were starting to make sense. "And what's step one?"

Justin leaned in, and said very quietly, "This time we're starting with a kiss."


End file.
